Lion-L Machinery Company, Cape Girardeau Mo., the rest of the story.
I contacted Homge and sent them pictures, they say they did not make these machines. I was able to search the Homge catalogs back to the year 2000, there were no milling machines, just fixturing for mills. I searched the internet using both the Homge name and Lion-L, the only pic I could find was here on PM in the thread noted above. I searched the hobby machinist forums for mention of this machine, there was nothing. So how was it that out here in BFE Nevada I was looking at a line of 7 of these machines? Its possible that Homge does not want to admit making them, but its equally plausible there is no one left at Homge that remembers what they were selling in 1985.
So I started thinking about the owner of the building, he was a character in this town that had grand visions of turning it into an artist colony. At the time I arrived he had just laid off his artist workforce, lets just say he did not understand the artist mindset. His original plan was to cast art in bronze here, but instead he sent the molds off to china and imported the statues. He was also importing yurts from Mongolia, marble from Turkey, and reproduction antiqued furniture from some place, I got a 10ft tall mirror that was freight damaged and returned.
So I'm 99.9% positive these were imported by Lionel Hastings in about 1985, the date on the motor. Lionel's main business was named Magna-Tel and was in Cape Girardeau, Missouri , google still brings up a pic of the building with a note that it is permanently closed. If you walked out the back door of Magna-Tel, you would be looking at 802 Progress St which is an empty lot.
So how did Lionel end up in BFE? His original company, Bumpa-Tel made a product you've probably all seen, the passenger side/instructor brake pedal in drivers-ed cars. As an aftermarket mfr he was low hanging fruit for the accident/injury lawyers, so sometime in the 80's he spun the drivers-ed portion of the business off into Safety Industries and moved it to Nevada, and Bumpa-Tel became Magna-Tel. He kept the only atty in the county on retainer, and the local judge did not like city slicker lawsters, so that worked out in his favor. He did lose his building out here one year in a lawsuit, but they had to sell it on the courthouse steps, he bought it back for something like 15K and moved right back in, lol.
Most of my interactions with Lionel were just small talk, but one snowy night Pat, Lionel, and myself were the last 3 standing at the bar. Lionel purchased a bottle of whiskey and a 12 pack of coke and said 'We're going to Pat's shop for a drink, join us", so I did. We sat around the woodstove telling stories from our glory days while a blizzard raged outside, by 6am the bottle was empty, neither of our cars would start (maybe a good thing), so Lionel and I both had to trudge home thru the snow.
There were 8 of the machines that I know of, 1 was in his main building and was removed some years ago, it may be the one pictured in the post/thread above. 2 stayed here, 5 went down to Az.
If anyone has a Homge catalog from 1985 that shows this machine, please post a pic. If anyone ever finds one of these machines with another name on it, please post a pic. If anyone ever finds another Lion-L machine, please post a pic, it seems odd there would only be these mills. Advertising in 1985 would most likely be magazine adverts and mailed catalogs, if you ever find a Lion-L Machinery ad or catalog, please post a pic.